Thursday, April 10, 2008

House Tour... part 1

This is the Bathroom and Kitchen version of the tour... I'm including pictures of each room as well as favorite organization projects.

The is the blue bathroom that Love Bug and I share. I love the bright colors of the towels and accents I already had, so I was happy that they matched the tiles that were already there.

This is one of the cabinets in the bathroom. I'm keeping all the extra towels on the top shelf, extra sheets for the guest beds on the second shelf, and the bottom for extra toilet paper and an extra shower curtain. The other cabinet (not shown) has Love Bug's towels, some extra toiletries, and space for the new baby's towels.

This is B's bathroom, or the red bathroom. We also had a few sets of navy and maroon towels, so they went really well in here. I love the extra hand towels I found with his initial on them (the right side of the picture).

Our kitchen from the doorway. More cabinets extend to the left of the oven and we also have cabinets across from these next to the fridge... you can see them right....

here!

You can see my kitchen scale in the picture... my favorite thing! Cooking is easy in metric because you just weigh everything. So, say you're making a cake... you put the bowl on the scale and zero it out. Then add flour to the correct weight... and zero it out. Then add butter... etc! Simple and no measuring cups to clean up!

The is one drawer in the kitchen that illustrated my believe that sometimes very little organization is the best. I keep paring knives in the far right bin... cheese and veggie peelers in the next bin. The rest I just leave loose, because they're all oversized. Large spice graters, a wine opener, a pizza wheel, and scissors are all too big for any bins I have.

My cooking supplies. We entertain a lot, so we have a lot!

The next two pictures illustrated one of my favorite organization techniques- "putting things in the area of first use". This is mentioned in a lot of organization books, but is completely under-utilized by most people.

I call this the breakfast cabinet. We have all bowls and plates in this cabinet, with cereal and oatmeal just above. Bread is above the fridge to the immediate right, along with glasses and cups in the cabinet to the right. Silverware is below in a drawer and Love Bug's dishes are in a cabinet below this. Breakfast is always eaten at home in our house and I love this cabinet. I really don't have to move much except to take a step to get butter, milk, or orange juice out of the fridge, which is one foot away! It's great for serving lunch and dinner as well, since all plates, silverware, and glasses are in one place!

This is my tea and coffee cabinet. My pretty tea mugs are on the top left and B's big coffee mugs are on the right. On the bottom shelf, from left to right, are coffee filters, equal, coffee beans, and a gallon bag full of 7 different types of tea. The boxes for 7 different types take up too much room, so I condensed! Behind this we have more specialty coffee and tea flavors for guests and special occasions. I admit, I use my specialty teas for myself a lot! But a lot of guests just want English tea or green tea from my mega bag, so I think I'm justified!

I hope you enjoyed part 1! I'll be doing tours of our rooms this weekend and our living room/dining room next week.

I'm a wife, mother of two, and a musician. When I'm not making music, I love to read, go to the gym, and play with my kids. I'm from North Carolina, lived eight years overseas as an adult, and love to travel.